Author: shoreacres

A Short Tale of a Different Long-Tail

~ shoreacres ~ 39 Comments
White-striped Longtail (Chioides albofasciatus)

Recently, I offered three views of a Long-tailed Skipper with a beautiful blue, furry body. At the time, I mentioned that I’d first seen a Long-tailed Skipper at Bastrop State park in October, and I’d wondered whether they frequented my area. When I posted the photos of my local skippers (Urbanus proteus), I’d assumed the answer was ‘yes.’ As it turns out, the answer was both ‘yes’ and ‘no.’

Looking again at my images from Bastrop, I found that the skipper I’d photographed at Bastrop State Park didn’t have the same patches on the underside of its wings. Instead, a long, silver-white band ran from the leading edge of its wing to the base of its tail. When I shared its image with Wally Jones, a Floridian and birder whose Our Natural Places blog is one of my favorites, he suggested that I’d found a White-Striped Longtail (Chioides albofasciatus). 

After comparing photos with those published on Butterflies and Moths of North America (BAMONA), I had to agree. A common, widely distributed skipper, the White-striped Longtail has a limited range in the United States, but it’s regularly recorded in Texas, and can be quite common in late summer and fall.

The lesson? A long tail alone does not a long-tailed skipper make. As luck would have it, I discovered two long-tailed skipper species this fall: not one.

That ‘other’ Long-tailed Skipper ~ Urbanus proteus

Comments always are welcome.

The Little Blue Slow Change Artist

~ shoreacres ~ 65 Comments
Juvenile Little Blue Heron ~ Laffite’s Cove Nature Center, Galveston Island

It’s taken time, but eventually I came to understand that not every smaller, white wading bird I encountered at the edge of ponds or on the tidal flats was a Snowy Egret. In the first year of its life, the Little Blue Heron (Egretta caerulea) is white, showing no more than dusky blue or gray shadows on the tips of its feathers.

Greenish-yellow legs and feet, together with a bill that tends toward pale gray rather than black also helps with identification. The Sibley guide mentions that many immature Little Blue Herons show a short pointed plume or two on the back of their heads; I may have captured that feature in the first photo.

As the bird matures, it takes on a mottled, or piebald, appearance as white feathers are replaced.

Maturing Little Blue Heron ~ Brazoria Wildlife Refuge

Adult birds may seem uniformly dark at a distance, but in fact their feathers present a pleasing combination of maroon and a dark slaty-blue. Their legs remain green; combined with their yellow eyes and a pale blue bill tipped with black at the base, they’re fairly easy to identify.

In the past, I sometimes confused adult Little Blue Herons with Reddish Egrets, despite their color differences; Reddish Egret feathers have been described as cinnamon and steel.

Apart from those color differences, behavior helps to distinguish the birds. The Reddish Egret is a frenetic forager: chasing fish by running back and forth, opening and shutting its wings, and stirring up sediment with its feet. The Little Blue is a sedate stalker: as elegant on the hunt as in moments of rest, and equally beautiful.

An elegant pair at the Brazoria refuge

 

Comments always are welcome.

Walden West ~ January 1

~ shoreacres ~ 78 Comments

On January 1, as I returned to the small, wet depression I’d dubbed Walden West, I’d made some assumptions about what I would find on a cool, dim New Year’s Day. I fully expected seed pods and fallen leaves, bare branches, and a mixture of yaupon and palmetto, but in only a few hours I discovered a far richer and more varied world: a world splashed with color and teeming with life.

The first clue that I wouldn’t be alone came as I crossed a boardwalk on my way to the less-traveled path that leads to the pond. An iridescent fly with the amusing name of Secondary Screwworm (Cochliomyia macellaria) was lolling about, ready for a photo session. While the larvae feed on carrion and decomposing tissue, they only enter existing wounds: a practice which gave rise to the ‘secondary’ in their name.

(Click any image for more details; I imagined this one’s eyes held together by a zipper.)

At the edge of a clearing beyond the boardwalk, a few eastern annual Saltmarsh Asters (Symphyotrichum subulatum) still bloomed, while patches of Crow Poison (Nothoscordum bivalve) hosted hoverflies, ants, and at least one metallic sweat bee.

One of our earliest-blooming spring wildflowers, Crow Poison can put on quite a show even in early winter when conditions are right.

Moving more deeply into the woods, I found innumerable trees sporting lichen covered trunks. Judging by color alone, the blue-green example shown here might be a powdery medallion lichen, or a lobed cotton lichen. For that matter, it could be salted shell lichen; I really haven’t a clue.

But this website, filled with lichen photos and more amusing lichen names than I could have imagined — yellow cobblestone, sunken button, golden moonglow, pebbled pixie cup — will be helpful in future attempts to identify fungi of all sorts.

It is, of course, seed season, and an abundance of Clematis pitcheri seed pods dangled, spider-like, from red-berried Yaupon trees (Ilex vomitoria): a reminder to watch in spring for the deep blue, urn-shaped flowers that produced them.

In some places, Seaside Goldenrod continues to produce a few blooms, but other species, like this Tall Goldenrod (Solidago altissima), have bid a final farewell to summer.

Other farewells are more colorful. Gardeners no doubt are familiar with leaf spots like these, which can be caused by bacteria as well as by fungi. Bacterial infections often form a yellow ‘halo’ around infected areas; fungal diseases more typically produce spores within the leaf spot, aiding identification.

Just above this leaf, another bit of color hung swaying in the breeze. An Orchard Orb Weaver (Leucauge venusta) had positioned itself beneath its horizontal web, presumably awaiting the arrival of prey. Its name certainly suits: Leucauge comes from Greek roots that mean ‘with a bright gleam,’ while the specific epithet venusta means ‘charming,’ or ‘attractive.’

Deep in the dim, damp shade, more fungi appeared. At first, I assumed this smooth, round ‘something’ to be a puffball. Then, I realized larger examples nearby had taken on the appearance of rising bread. I’ve yet to find a similar photo online, so identification will have to wait.  

Despite my inability to identify this six-inch wide mushroom, I found its serrated edge interesting, and the symmetry of its gills especially attractive.

As I worked my way back to the edge of the grove, a few more flowers appeared, like this perfectly named Hairypod Cowpea (Vigna luteola). Coaxed into additional bloom by sunlight and warmth, it already was producing seed.

Nearby, I thought I’d found a mutated hoverfly with four wings, until I took a closer look and realized two hoverflies had chosen to dally on a petal of Whitemouth Dayflower (Commelina erecta ).

Looking at the photos, I noticed for the first time the small bulb-like appendages extending from the hoverflies’ bodies. They’re known as halteres: a second pair of wings reduced to flexible, vibrating, club-shaped rods. They function like miniscule gyroscopes, constantly feeding information to the insect about its position and providing for the instant, precise flight adjustment that allows hoverflies to hover or quickly change direction.

As a final treat, I found this Four-spotted Aphid Fly (Dioprosopa clavata) visiting a late-blooming Texas Vervain (Verbena halei). The only Dioprosopa species in North America, this member of the Syrphidae lays its eggs on vegetation near aphid colonies. Newly hatched larvae feed on the aphids, making this hoverfly an important biological control agent in citrus growing areas where Brown Citrus Aphids are common.

It’s sometimes confused with a wasp because of its narrow ‘waist,’ but its two wings and the presence of halteres confirm it as a true fly.

Given what January already has offered, I’m eager to see what February will bring at ‘Walden West.’

“The day is an epitome of the year. The night is the winter, the morning and evening are the spring and fall, and the noon is the summer.”
Walden ~ Henry David Thoreau

 

Comments always are welcome.

One Skipper, Three Views

~ shoreacres ~ 65 Comments

To be honest, I’m sure this isn’t ‘one skipper.’ ‘One species’ would be a more accurate title, since on December 24, Long-tailed Skippers (Urbanus proteus) were abundant at the nearby Dudney Nature Center.

I’d first seen a Long-tailed Skipper at Bastrop State park in October, and wondered at the time whether they frequented my area. On this day at least, the answer was ‘yes,’ and I was pleased to capture some of the details that had evaded me at Bastrop: particularly, their lovely blue accents and at least a bit of the split in their tails.

In their book Butterflies of Houston, John and Gloria Tveten note that pristine examples of this skipper can be hard to find, since lizards and birds often relieve them of their long tails, but in this case no damage was apparent.

Sometimes called ‘bean rollers,’ Long-tailed Skippers utilize members of the bean family as host plants; newly hatched caterpillars roll themselves into leaves for protection as they develop. Adults feed on a variety of plants, including Lantana, Bougainvillea, and various Bidens species.

In late December, these still-blooming stems of Porterweed provided nectar. A native Porterweed (Stachytarpheta jamaicensis) can be found in south Florida, but many local butterfly gardens include Porterweed cultivars because of the flowers’ attractiveness to butterflies and other insects.

 

Comments always are welcome.

A New Year, a New Pond, and New Possibilities

~ shoreacres ~ 76 Comments
My New Year’s Day destination

Whether this water-filled depression truly is a pond, I can’t say. It may be akin to a vernal pool, filling and drying as conditions change. Whatever its nature, I’ve passed the spot for years without being aware of its existence, until autumn helped to open the view and a pathway to its edge became visible.

Of course I named it immediately, and if the name ‘Walden West’ seems too obvious, it felt appropriate. I’ve never seen a New England pond, let alone Walden itself, but certain characteristics of this watery depression and the woods surrounding it — isolated, self-contained, unpublicized — suggested it as the basis for a year-long project dedicated to documenting the nature of a single place and its seasonal changes.

Vibrant poison ivy at the water’s edge

When I discovered the spot last Sunday, frustration limited my explorations somewhat. I’d been distracted, and set off for the day without putting a card in my camera — a fact I discovered only after attempting to capture the view shown in the photo at the top of the page. Two hours from home and an hour away from being able to purchase another card, it seemed that photos of my new spot would have to wait.

Then, I remembered my camera phone, and Sunshine came to the rescue. Once I’d learned to keep my fingers away from the lens and queried the search engine a dozen or so times, all was well.

Lichen (possibly Usnea spp.) on a fallen limb

Today, I’ll be returning to my ‘new’ pond; it seems a perfect destination for a new year. With a card already in my camera and an open path awaiting, new discoveries are inevitable: a truth that Thoreau, that other Walden-lover, knew so well.

“It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond-side; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct.
It is true, I fear, that others may have fallen into it, and so helped to keep it open. The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity!
I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.

 

Comments always are welcome.